Shadow priests seem to be top of the food chain in 1v1, atm, with only opmages being a tough fight for them. They also get A LOT of tools to handle melee with, including a fancy looking frost nova (Tip: slap a shield on the void tentacle so that whoever you trapped in it has to chew through that one before he is free. )

Since my dk remains the same as in cata in 1v1 pvp, mediocre, I have started leveling a shadow priest. Haven't made up my mind if I will focus on the priest in the end, as it might just be smoke and mirrors given the fact that damage and healing is tuned for level 90, so at that level priests may become once more the terribads they were in cata.

Btw, also wanted to level a lock but since the lock fotm spec seems to be destro, about which I don't care, and demo (my favorite) is average just as in cata, I screwed that decision.

At a quicklook from raids last night, my Shadow Priest's dps is up about 25% (single target). The only fight I didn't easily top my personal bests was the ooze boss, because we killed him too fast and never got the black ooze, so there was no AOE meter padding. The rotation isn't too bad - I'm still settling in after 2 years of polish, but it's smooth and a bit simpler.

I also discovered I could survive Hour of Twilight on Ultraxion straight up - no cooldowns, just passives. Left me really low, but alive. On a related note, the DBM upgrade removed all the Cata boss warnings.

My single target DPS went down about 5% or so (I blame this mostly on getting used to the new priority and my errors rather than class specific), but my AOE went up a lot with putting dots up on multiple mobs and all the instant casts that come from that. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, mind sear until instant casts.

My thought for priests in pvp, from a night or two of messing around in BG's as shadow and disc:

- Shadow surviability is up nicely. Lots of new defensive talents, and less reliance on fear as our only cc. Much easier to control melee.
- Ability to use renew and pom in shadow form is awesome, and healing is a bit broken atm due to pvp power.
- Damage is okay, but the spikey damage we had previously is gone. The MS/MB rotation on a focus target doesn't guarantee crits, and SW-D now triggers at 20% rather then 25%. I used to be a killing machine and am finding it a lot harder to actually finish off a target now because the damage is more consistent and that makes it easier to heal.

- Disc survivability is as good as it ever was. Not much has changed here. A few more defensive talents and again, less reliance on fear.
- Less snare removal, but better mobility talents. Really liking the feathers and how quickly we can move flags across the field.
- Control is down, need to talent into mind control now and it's on a tier that has better options. Disc will definitely be going down in ranks for 2v2 arena without this.
- Having mana issues in BG's. Going oom much quicker and while you can get the 60s shadowfiend or PW:Solace, it doesn't seem to be leading to the endless mana supply I was really expecting. If PW:Solace triggered atonement it would be really good, but it doesn't, so that solace spamming for mana means you are not healing.

Not much has changed for me, but I'm having a blast doing ALL THE DAILY QUESTS as Holy, with the relevant glyphs. Bodes well for the levelling experience, as I prefer to stay Holy whenever possible.

Love love love void tendrils, and my experiments with "Priest Vanish". Only disappointment is Lightspring, as I feel that is doing nothing in my LFR play so far, but I suppose it would be useful for higher difficulty levels.